The Kerrigan family is not exactly Australia's brightest or most sophisticated, but they enjoy life's simple pleasures, happy memories, and lots of mutual love in their little house – their “castle” – by the airport. When airport expansion expropriates their home, Dad Darryl decides to fight back. He takes his case to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. Their focus on points of law clashes with his focus on simple compassion and common sense, and he loses. But Darryl will not give up. Threats do not sway him. Vandalism to his windshield only riles him to amusing retaliatory vandalism. He does not want the financial compensation, even when it is upped considerably: He wants his home.
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With no barristers willing to assist him, he enlists his reluctant and under-qualified family solicitor, Dennis, to help him appeal the decision in Federal Court. With nervousness, disorganization, and ridiculous feeble assertions, Dennis loses the case spectacularly. But Darryl's chance meeting with a stranger named Lawrence in the court's hallway proves propitious. Lawrence, a retired Queen's Counsel, is moved by his story, and offers to take his case, gratis, to the highest court in Australia. With Dennis along as his (basically useless) “instructing solicitor,” Lawrence goes up against a formidable team of lawyers. When one of them openly insults the Kerrigan home, Darryl jumps up to furiously rebut, and his rants during the ensuing adjournment become, along with quotes of cases and laws, part of Lawrence's summation.
This low-budget Australian film was shot in just 11 days.
The review of this Movie prepared by vjm
